Last year I played along with Ali Edward’s Day in the Life monthly and it was one of my favorite projects ever. This year, I’m repeating the project. I’ve been doing it on the 15th of each month, but this month switched to the 8th so I could play along with Ali’s official day in the life. The day fell on a traveling day for me, so that made it even more fun!

Here’s Thursday, May 8th, aka The Nerds Do Philadelphia:

I woke up at 3:30AM so I could leave with enough time to get the Kansas City International Airport (KCI) two hours before my 6:55AM flight. My grandpa, Poppy, picked me up and took me because he is the best person ever. He also watched Jonas during the day and Eliza after she got home while my mom was at work. I did a few last things around the house, like clean out the kitty litter and pack the kids’ weekend overnight bag, before we left. I also kissed the sleeping kids goodbye.

I drank coffee in the car, and after grabbing my tickets from the digital kiosk at the airport, I followed up with tea and a scone from Starbucks (don’t like their coffee). After I drank my tea, I went through security–which involves sanding in line for an ID / ticket check, putting personal items and shoes in a bin along with luggage to pass it through an x-ray (the bins had quotes– mine said “I’ve been everywhere, man” from Johnny Cash), and walking through a metal detector. I also needed to be patted down a bit because I had a flowy skirt on.

I settled in to wait for the plane and started to read The Catcher in the Rye, because it takes place in Pennsylvania and I picked all books set in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York for the trip. The flight to Philadelphia was about two hours, and I spent the time reading the whole of Catcher and I started Silver Linings Playbook.

Jake was already in Pennsylvania for a business trip, but he was working in Easton. His coworkers were going to drop him in downtown Philly, but I was surprised that he was waiting for me at the airport when I got off of the plane!

We walked right out of the airport to the connecting SEPTA station. Jake LOVES public transportation, so he was giddily excited. We were also happy to see each other and sort of couldn’t keep our hands off of each other like teenagers. (I know, gross. Can’t help it. So mushy.) We bought Day passes which, in addition to rocking for being Project Life sized, rock for being one price for using ANY public transportation in Philly for the day. Those were a lifesaver.

We accidentally overshot a few stations to Wayne Junction (the announcer on the SEPTA sounded like the teacher in Peanuts), so we got off and went the other way to Suburban Station, where we actually needed to be. Suburban Station was so neat: there was even a little farmer’s market inside!

We walked the couple of blocks from the station to our hotel–Embassy Suites in Center City. They were awesome to let us check in WAY early. We were just expecting to be able to drop off our bags.

We reveled in the crazy level of swankyness our hotel room. We were not expecting it to be so nice–we got a deal with my plane ticket through Travelocity. It was unnecessarily fancy and huge. And the view from floor 22 was freaking fantastic!!!

We headed back out for Suburban station, grabbed some delicious falafel wraps, chicken kebob wraps, and lentil soup from a food cart on the way. King of Falafel is not false advertising. Total fact.

We took the rail to the University City station so we could go to Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology). We stayed as long as we could before closing time. Three hours.

This post is crazy long without me nerding out about the museum, so I’ll just say it was awesome. And was definitely the right Philly thing to do choice for us. And we’re gonna need to take the kids there. And three hours was not enough time.

We hopped back on the line and got off at Market East. We re-caffeinated with soda and strolled through Chinatown. Then we started to make our way towards Geno’s Steaks. We were exhausted by that point, so it was the longest mile and a half walk ever. It was still amazing to get to walk through the different neighborhoods, though, so I’m glad we did it.

Then philly cheesesteaks on recommendation from Poppy and Kristin. Apparantly Geno’s vs. Pat’s is a big thing, but our people said Genos and we trust them.

We both got wiz, I added mushrooms and sweet peppers, and they were fat kid heaven, I’m telling you.

We walked to the Broad Street line to the Ellsworth-Federal Station to take us back to City Hall near our hotel.

We wandered around taking in the architecture, walked under City Hall, which was gorgeous and had fantastic acoustics (a violinist was performing).

We got a picture in Love park because we were walking through it and we thought, “Might as well, even though it is super cliche.” Some awesome kids were mixing hip hop, break dance, and ballet in the park which was so fun to watch.

We watched the sun set while walking around, then headed back to our hotel in a pile of exhaustion.

We soaked our bones in a bath and then fell asleep super early. (That’s 9:00PM in Kansas City time.)

I think that’s pretty much the maximum Philly experience you can fit into one day and I’m pretty proud we did all that on almost no sleep. It was amazing, and I definitely want to go back and experience the city for more than a day. We didn’t even get to any of the historical stuff!

Are you playing along with Day in the Life? Make sure to share a link with yours if you are!!!

What an awesome adventure you’re having. So wonderful of you to share it with us! Have fun!

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

Thanks, Heather! It was a blast. I’m still tired from the trip now that I’m all settled back in

Neva

I live in Northeast Philly and I’ve never been to the Penn Museum. Looks like I’m gonna need to put that on my bucket list
So glad that you had a blast!

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

Penn was amazing if you like that stuff! It’s a little strange to navigate, make sure you grab a map at the front

Any awesome Philly things we missed that I should be sure to catch next time?

http://www.hclappy.wordpress.com/ Jen

So awesome! I love how you put the details about going through security etc. That has changed so much during our lifetime and surely will change a lot more as we work towards TSA- Space Edition. Also, don’t ever wear long skirts to the airport. It’s not always a nice polite pat-down. Sometimes they get all up in your junk to an uncomfortable degree. The pictures of you guys together are SO cute and I love the museum pics
I did DITL that day too, which was one of the few “normal” Days I’ve documented this year. http://hclappy.wordpress.com/2014/05/09/day-in-the-life-may-8-2014/

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

I was thinking about that too! The airport today is totally different than when I was a kid.

I figured the long skirt would be cool for KCI because they’re pretty chill. I was expecting Newark to be crazy, so I wore jeans, but they didn’t even make us take our shoes off! (Though I did anyway because I was on auto pilot.) No rhyme or reason to the security. (Maybe it was because they had K9s at Newark?)

Excited to read your DITL!

http://www.hclappy.wordpress.com/ Jen

My skirt trauma was at LAX I think. Which I get pulled out of line about 90% of the time I fly anyway so it’s just part of the awesome experience for me now. Maybe K9′s have something to do with it. I tell everyone I know not to wear long skirts just in case.

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

So strange that you get pulled often!

http://www.hclappy.wordpress.com/ Jen

I have this, which makes people think I’m shifty and untrustworthy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystagmus It was worse when I was single because I would always be late, so when TSA sees this sweaty red-faced shifty-eyed person running towards them to get screened, they would ALWAYS pull me out of line to get poked at.

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

I knew you had that, it’s just super strange to me that it would translate as possibly criminal!

http://www.hclappy.wordpress.com/ Jen

I used to get mad, but now we just allow for extra time at the airports. Just one of those things.

Ami Pilon

Megan, Jon and I have been married for 28 years in July and everyone says we act like newly weds. I think showing affection is so healthy and delightful. Keep up the joy in your togetherness. It is great fortune.

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

That is awesome Ami!

I have no problem actually showing the affection, it’s more the talking about it that I get weird about, if that makes sense.

Ami Pilon

You are better than you think, & your words along with the pictures in all of your posts, show great affection for each other, your family and friends, and life in general.

http://kelliewinnell.typepad.com/ Kellie

Oh how I loved reading this post with my morning coffee and seeing all your amazing photographs. You rock at a day in the life.

http://www.thenerdnest.com/ Megan Anderson

Thanks Kellie!

I love reading blogs over morning coffee too

http://www.mylifeasateacup.com/ Kristin

Looks like you had a blast!!

P.S. I’m still sad that Philly and Pittsburgh are so far away xD

http://www.radicalflower.blogspot.com/ Serena McClain

That is hella impressive adventuring for one day and a wake-up time of 3:30AM! I enjoyed all of the photos, but the photo of you at Geno’s might be my favorite